Why is it so difficult to feel okay with how you look?
A lot of people do not feel entirely satisfied and may have mixed feelings over time about their body or appearance.
This might be because there is a fixed societal beauty standard and only a tiny proportion of people naturally meet it, which means that the diverse range of different bodies, features and characteristics are not celebrated. This leaves lots of people feeling not good enough and may have urges to change themselves to fit in.
We see these restrictive beauty standards everyday across different forms of media. On social media feeds, TV shows, magazines and billboard ads everyone tends to look surprisingly similar to one another, fitting into this uniform standard of “perfect”.
However, the images we see are almost always edited, filtered, professionally styled and angled, or the influencer may have paid for expensive and possibly risky medical procedures or medications to change their appearance.
But even when we understand that these pictures do not represent reality, our society is so immersed in media consumption that we are constantly exposed to these virtual flawless figures, which can make us forget what real bodies and people look like, tricking us into thinking that is what’s normal and how we are supposed to look.
The situation becomes even harder with beauty trends constantly shifting and changing the standards.
For instance, celebrities are dissolving their once-popular lip fillers and removing their Brazilian butt-lift implants and instead, they are engaging with newer trends like using weight loss injections and editing themselves using Artificial Intelligence. Like these influencers, we might feel enticed to follow these trends, but most people are unlikely to have the time, money, or resources to continually edit our images, bodies and faces, which can place us in a cycle of frustration for not fitting in with the people we see online.
Detecting if your thoughts are interfering with your life
Lots of people experience negative thoughts about how they look, but if these thoughts are more severe, it may help to get some professional support.
Some signs you may need some extra support:
- You feel you cannot stop thinking negatively about how you look and feeling consumed by these thoughts.
- Your thoughts are causing you distress, making you feel angry, sad or anxious.
- You avoid doing certain activities because you feel bad about how you look.
- You feel you must hide your body or face with baggy clothes or makeup to be able to go out or do things.
- You feel you must engage in behaviours to change how you look to be happy, like doing workouts, trying to lose weight or wanting cosmetic surgery.
- You feel frustrated or sad whenever you use social media, feeling jealous and comparing yourself to the people on your feed.
Some ways to deal with these thoughts
Adjusting your social media habits
Taking a break from certain or all social media apps can be helpful to get some better perspective of reality and what people really look like and do daily. I’ve found that when I have taken social media breaks it gives me more time to doing a new hobby and developing skills, like arts and crafts, reading and crossing films off my watchlist!
If that seems like too much of a step, you could try changing how you use social media, for instance only following people you know and avoiding influencers, celebrities and brands etc. If there are people you feel bad for unfollowing you can mute or hide their account to avoid seeing them.
Go through the people you follow and think carefully about who you are exposed to online.
You could ask yourself these questions to decide whether to keep following certain accounts:
- Do I feel this worse about my body, face or appearance after viewing this content?
- Do I find myself feeling envious of this person and comparing my body or appearance to them?
- Do I view how they look as a goal or inspiration for changing myself?
- Have I considered spending money on procedures or products to look like this person?
- Have I changed or thought about changing how I eat or exercise because of this account?
- Would I advise against my friend or a young child following this account if they were experiencing similar thoughts?
Try to pay attention to observing real life bodies and faces without judgement
When in public and people watching, take in all the different bodies and people you see, recognise that very few of them look like the people you see on Instagram and that is okay and normal!
If you enjoy being artistic, you could even try drawing people’s bodies and faces in a life drawing class or just when people watching in public. This encourages you to really concentrate on the details and shapes of how real people look and you can practice being non-judgemental about different bodies and faces because you will be focused on your sketches!
Changing how you and the people you’re around talk about bodies and appearances
It is common to hear people talking about how other people look, but often these conversations will reinforce that you must look a certain way to be considered attractive and if you don’t look like that, people may talk about and judge you negatively.
When you are constantly hearing these judgemental discussions or if your friends are critical about how they look themselves, this might make you more likely to analyse and judge how you look and feel negatively about it.
It may be useful to have some conversations with your friends about this, your friends could even mention that they think similarly to you and that they’re glad someone brought it up.
Shutting down or not engaging in conversations talking about appearance or body image, whether negative or positive may help to demonstrate that there are more important things to think about in life than how people look.
Practice body neutrality and acceptance
Body acceptance is an approach where rather than hating or loving your body and appearance, you try to accept your body as a neutral thing, not good or bad; and instead focusing on how your body allows you to function and do the things you enjoy.
When someone is fully accepting of their body and appearance, they would not just accept their current appearance but whatever weight and body shape fluctuations may come about.
It is difficult to reach a stage of feeling completely neutral and accepting of your body but by using some of the techniques above, it may help you to become more body neutral and avoid negative thoughts about how you look.
Here are some extra ways to practice appearance acceptance and neutrality:
- Try to reduce body checking behaviours: avoid weighing scales or staring at yourself in the mirror, instead try and focus on the different sensations and feelings around your face and body.
- Wear clothes that are comfortable for you: If clothes that you’ve had before are too tight or loose, take a trip to the charity shop and see if you can donate them and pick up some new comfier pieces! Bodies fluctuate and change shape throughout your life, and your clothes are supposed to fit you, not the other way around.
- Acknowledge your negative thoughts and let them pass: hopefully at some point you can reach a point without these thoughts, but that is unlikely to come instantly. Until then, when the thoughts come, try to not engage with them but allow them to pass.
Trying to change your body or appearance will probably not solve your problem
Combined with the changes in beauty standards and trends, it is also completely natural for your body shape and weight to fluctuate throughout your life, especially in adolescence and young adulthood.
This means that even when we feel great about how we look at one point, both our bodies and what is considered ‘ideal’ will continue to evolve, and any feelings of satisfaction unfortunately do not last long because everything keeps changing.
Therefore, learning to accept ourselves as we are, can be a more helpful and lasting approach than constantly trying to change yourself.
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